Congress seeks court-monitored CBI probe into natural cotton ‘rip-off’ in MP

The ICSs are teams of 25 to 500 farmers who develop natural cotton. As of 2025, there are roughly 6,046 ICSs and 35 CBs.

Singh, nonetheless, alleged that the majority farmers who’re proven as registered below ICSs are neither rising natural cotton nor are they conscious of their presence within the system.

“In brief, ICS teams have intentionally dedicated fraud by including farmers’ names to acquire transaction certificates,” Singh alleged.

With the end result, he claimed, whereas the farmers battle to get honest costs for his or her produce, some highly effective merchants are promoting non-organic (Bt) cotton as ‘natural’, incomes as much as six instances the revenue.

Whereas these exporters are additionally committing large tax and GST evasion, on the worldwide stage, he claimed that India is now being seen as a “hub of fraud within the natural market”, resulting in cancellations of recognition by world companies.

He additionally claimed that raids on simply two business entities uncovered Rs 750 crore in GST evasion, revealing a Rs 7,500 crore rip-off from simply these two, as tax evasion accounted for under 5 per cent of the entire fraud quantity.

Referring to the worldwide fallout, the previous chief minister claimed that in October 2020, GOTS (World Natural Textile Commonplace) caught “pretend transaction certificates” in India, banned 11 firms, and revoked the accreditation of a significant certifier.

In June 2021, the USDA (USA) ended India’s computerized recognition for natural certification, Singh claimed, whereas revealing that in November 2021, the EU cancelled the popularity of 5 Indian certifiers attributable to restricted chemical substances present in supposedly natural merchandise.

Singh mentioned on 27 August 2024, he highlighted the natural cotton fraud in Madhya Pradesh via a letter to the prime minister.

The Congress chief demanded the structure of a particular investigation crew (SIT) led by the CBI below the supervision of a sitting excessive court docket decide. In search of clear inspections by the certifying our bodies, he additionally demanded honest compensation for the exploited farmers.